I stumbled across the amazing talent of Claire Heminsley during my travels in the UK. What a super artist! It is right up my street as it is hand drawn and black and white! Win win.

The more you look the more you see! This illustrated prints are from a collection which depicts an accurate, quirky and amusing view of special places in Scotland and England.

Claire is often asked ‘what is it made from?’ The answer is scratchboard/ scraperboard. It starts out life as a black board which is made up of a thin layer of white China clay that is coated with black India ink. I scrape through the black layer creating the image.

When she start her illustrations she begin with a visit to the location where she spend a long time looking, drawing and photographing. she is looking at both the buildings and environment and in particular the people, what they are doing and the stories being played out in front of me. She love people watching, trying to imagine what is going on and this gives me a perfect excuse to do so! Then she looks at all of the reference material and draws the layout in her wibbly wobbly way of course! She then start scratching in the buildings first and then the people and slowly the narrative evolves. She hope the viewer looks at the finished illustration the way it has been created seeing the buildings and layout first and then gradually the details and stories….. the more you look the more you see!! Look out for Angus the west highland terrier!